The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto (38 page)

For centuries, his body lay interred in this church—until the night it was burned to ashes, the same night Frankie’s mother, Carmencita, lost her life giving birth in this very chamber, bestowing Pascual’s name on her son—Francisco de Asís Pascual Presto—in the hope that it might protect him.

But it already had.

There is a reason more people were not killed that night, a reason the church was nearly empty when the raiders arrived. Hours before, San Pascual performed one last miracle, this time from the world of the dead.

He signaled the church members to flee.

By clapping inside his tomb.

They heard the sound clearly.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

And they ran.

Warning music.

When Frankie returned to Spain, it should have been sounding again.

“Maestro, could we visit the river today?”

“Why would we do that?”

“My papa took me once, to see the Pastoret statue. The little shepherd boy.”

“So you have seen it. No need to go again.”

“Do you know the story of the statue, Maestro?”

“Everyone in Villareal knows that story.”

“Is it true?”

“Get the guitar.”

“Is it true a little shepherd heard music from a cave?”

“The guitar—”

“And inside he found a statue of the Blessed Mary?”

“Francisco—”

“Is it true he brought the statue to the city—”

“Such foolishness—”

“And the next day it disappeared?”

“Enough—”

“And when the people went back to the caves, they heard music and found the Mary statue again?”

“Enough! Does music come from caves?”

“No, Maestro.”

“No, it does not. It comes from practicing. Which you are not doing.”

“So the story is not true?”

“I will tell you what is true. If Mary wanted to stay in a cave with her music, why does the shepherd need to disturb her?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

“Why do people need to disturb other people?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

“Don’t go back looking for things. Leave well enough alone in this life. Understand?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

“Now start playing. I am not getting any younger.”

The family stepped out of the airport and into the blinding sunshine. Frankie’s eyes began to hurt. He found his sunglasses, and as they drove down the coast, he gazed out the window, realizing he had forgotten much of his country’s color; the pastel houses, the orange groves, the whitecaps breaking up the blue Mediterranean Sea. What he had not forgotten, he had buried in his mind, including all his memoires of Baffa Rubio, having never forgiven the man’s deceptions.

It was Aurora’s idea to return. They had already visited California, New Orleans, and London, where Aurora saw her mother for the first time in years. Around an oblong wooden table, they shared a dinner of roasted beef and cabbage, and Aurora endured her mother’s glares at the foreign child they were calling their own.

“If I can handle that,” Aurora told Frankie that night, “you can handle Spain.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Do you think your father is alive?”

“He’s not my father.”

“So you won’t see him?”

“He’s not alive.”

“What if he were? Wouldn’t you speak to him?”

“And say what?”

“And say you lived. Say you have a wife and a child. Say thank you.”

“You don’t thank people for lying.”

“Francisco—”

“I don’t want to go.”

“We’re going.”

“Why is this so important for Kai?”

“Not just Kai.”

“I don’t want to go.”

She hooked her fingers in his.

“You said that already.”

On his own, he would never have made the trip. But with his wife holding one hand and his daughter holding the other, he was led back to this hot country.

And all the secrets it held.

Spanish life had changed dramatically since the 1940s. The dictator Franco was dead, and the country he’d held down for so long was slowly rising. Frankie barely recognized Villareal. The streets were paved, and cars commanded the roads where horses and bicycles once traveled. There was a sports stadium now and a large hospital and many new shops along the Calle Mayor.

Frankie walked his family through a busy plaza, past a weeping willow garden, and along an irrigation canal into which Francisco Tárrega had once been thrown by his caretaker, just as Frankie had once been thrown into a river. He avoided sharing any stories about Baffa Rubio, although he could feel Aurora’s silent urging as she walked beside him.

In the end, it was young Kai who changed Frankie’s mind. They had gone to a park to see La Panderola, the old steam train that had stopped running decades earlier. Only the engine and a passenger car remained, lodged under an awning.

“We used to chase this train,” Frankie told Kai.

“Who?”

“The children.”

“Why?”

“It was fun.”

“What if you fell on the tracks and the train was coming?”

“That would not happen.”

“What if you ran like this”—she darted in front of the old car—“and you fell, ooh.”

She dropped, laughing, and Frankie swooped in and lifted her high.

“Then my papa would save me at the last second!” he bellowed.

When he put her down, he noticed Aurora looking at him, her eyebrows raised. Frankie sighed.

“Come with me, Kai,” he said. “I’m going to show you where I grew up.”

The house on Calvario Street had been painted a lemony shade, and the windows were new. The lower door frame still contained two slots for cart wheels. Otherwise, the place seemed as modern as the homes surrounding it.

“There it is,” Frankie said.

“You lived there, Papa?”

“As a boy.”

“Who else lived there?”

“The man who took care of me—and our dog.”

“Where were your mama and papa?”

“In heaven.”

He opened his palms to Aurora as if to say, “Enough? Can we go?” but the child darted free and banged on the door.

“Kai, why did you do that?” Frankie yelled, grabbing her arm.

“Stop,” Aurora said. “She’s just curious.”

The door eased open. A smallish woman with a shawl on her shoulders peeked out.

“Sí?”

Frankie straightened up, then spoke in Spanish.

“I am very sorry, señora. We did not mean to disturb you. My daughter was—”

“Do you speak English?” Aurora interrupted.

“A little,” the woman said.

“
No es necesario
—” Frankie said.

“My husband used to live here as a boy. In this house. Your house.”

“
Sí?
” The woman looked at Frankie. “Ah,” she added, her expression widening, “I see you before.”

“Where?” Aurora asked.

The woman held up a finger. She disappeared for a minute, leaving the door open, then returned dragging a large box along the floor.

“Come, come,” she said.

The three of them stepped inside, Frankie last. His heart was beating quickly. He glanced around, expecting to be hit with a wave of emotion. But everything was different. The paint. The photos. The furniture. Rooms are rooms, after all, as a music staff is a music staff. How you fill them is what makes them your own.

“
Mira
,” the woman said. She lifted a thin blanket from atop the box, and pulled out an old record album. “Is you, yes?”

It was the cover to Frankie’s first release, a Spanish import.

“Papa, look!” Kai exclaimed, grabbing the record. But Frankie’s eyes had already shifted to some other contents of the box. An old radio. A dog leash. And his
braguinha
.

“Was that your guitar?” Aurora whispered.

“Where did you get this?” Frankie asked the woman.

“A man bring. Long time ago. He say leave in house if family come to get. No family come.”

“Which man?”

She wiggled her fingers, searching for the word in English, then gave up.

“El hombre del cementerio.”

“What did she say?” Aurora asked.

“The man from the cemetery,” Frankie said.

Music has long been a part of your death rituals. Requiem masses. Hymns. A bugler blowing “Taps.” As a talent, I cannot grieve. But you certainly grieve through me. Your most passionate compositions are often inspired by loss.

The requiem for Baffa Rubio arrived late, in the form of his adopted son, Francisco, who wandered through the Cementerio Municipal, searching crypts for a name. It was not a place young Frankie had ever visited. During his childhood, the Franco forces would pull citizens from their homes and line them up against the cemetery’s exterior walls, then shoot them dead. Many of them carried pieces of my talent, and were buried with their songs unsung. Their bones fill an anonymous tomb, and bullet holes in the walls are their only markers.